Context of 'August 22, 1974: Haldeman: ‘I’ve Never Lied in My Life’'

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President Richard Nixon writes an action memo to senior aide H. R. Haldeman saying, “One of our most important projects for 1970 is to see that our major contributors funnel all their funds through us.” Haldeman and Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans set up a secret fund-raising enterprise, the “Townhouse Operation,” designed to bypass the Republican National Committee. By doing so, Nixon intends to ensure the GOP will field candidates suitably loyal to him, and reliably opposed to the GOP’s traditional Eastern Establishment base that Nixon so resents. Although George H. W. Bush is a charter member of that Eastern Establishment, Nixon likes and trusts him. Bush is “a total Nixon man,” Nixon once says. “He’ll do anything for the cause.” Bush is the main beneficiary of the slush fund, which is made up of about $106,000 in contributions from Texas GOP sources, but up to 18 other Republican Senate candidates also receive money from the fund. The Wall Street Journal will later lambast Townhouse, calling it a “dress rehearsal for the campaign finance abuses of Watergate, as well as for today’s loophole-ridden system.” [Werth, 2006, pp. 115-116]

Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman and Charles Colson celebrate a breakthrough in the US-Soviet SALT II disarmament talks by taking a dinner cruise on the presidential yacht “Sequoia.” The conversation turns to the subject of press leaks, and Nixon vows: “One day we will get them—we’ll get them on the ground where we want them. And we’ll stick our heels in, step on them hard and twist—right, Chuck, right? Henry knows what I mean—just like you do in negotiating, Henry—get them on the floor and step on them, crush them, show no mercy.” [Werth, 2006, pp. 346]

Vice President Spiro Agnew tells Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman that he is becoming enmeshed in an investigation of illegal campaign contributions in his home state of Maryland. The state’s US Attorney, George Beall, questioned Agnew’s former business aide, Jerome Wolfe, who provided evidence of Agnew discussing raising funds from Maryland business owners who had received state contracts. It “wasn’t shakedown stuff,” Agnew says, “it was merely going back to get support from those who had benefitted from the administration.” Agnew knows that Beall’s brother is Senator J. Glenn Beall (R-MD), and asks Haldeman to have the senator intercede with his brother, a request Haldeman refuses. For his part, President Nixon is more amused than angered by Agnew’s apparent corruption, joking that taking campaign contributions from contractors was “a common practice” in Maryland and other states. “Thank God I was never elected governor of California,” Nixon cracks. But the allegations against Agnew will become more widespread; a Maryland grand jury will alert the Justice Department that Agnew had taken money for past favors, even taking payments—bribes—after becoming vice president. [Time, 9/30/1996; US Senate, 2007]

The House of Representatives agrees to allow former Nixon aide H. R. Haldeman and his lawyers to review, but not copy, transcripts, memoranda, and notes from its Watergate inquiry. Haldeman, like Nixon and others, is facing a raft of criminal and civil trials. Haldeman stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, to give a deposition in a civil trial alleging that his tough security measures during a Charlotte visit by Nixon—when local police and Veterans of Foreign Wars members forcibly ejected unwanted audience members—violated protesters’ civil rights. One protester shouts, “Bob, I want you to tell the truth in there and don’t lie.” Haldeman answers, “I’ve never lied in my life.” [Werth, 2006, pp. 161]

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